Could a Return to the Drachma Help Greece Regain its Competitiveness?

Vasilis Sarafidis (Monash University) recently posted an article discussing the thesis that a return to the drachma would help Greece regain its competitiveness. His main point can be summarized as follows.

The basic argument for returning back to the drachma is that the ability of a country with sovereign monetary policy to occasionally devalue its currency can help it regain its competitiveness in international markets. This article examines, with the help of time series plots, the effect of 3 distinct events of currency devaluation that took place in Greece during the period 1974 – 2001. It appears that currency devaluations have had only a small and short-lived favourable effect on the competitiveness of the Greek economy. By contrast, there exists a long term deterioration in the trade and current account deficits, which appears to be moderately halted in the short term through application of stabilization policies rather than currency devaluation alone. This is consistent with the popular view among economists that competitiveness is a structural feature of an economy and it mainly depends, among other factors, on theability to exploit comparative advantages, which requires high productivity, business agility, skilled human capital, an efficient public sector that does not work to the detriment of the rest of the economy, and a fair and efficient tax system.